The management myth

Did you know that it is not only managers who can solve problems?

If you are like me then you must be baffled by the everyday belief that only managers can solve problems. So entrenched is this myth that even the technically competent, highly qualified personnel will suspend thinking, step back and wait for the manager to come and solve a problem they could resolve themselves on the work front. This misplaced belief means that managers become bottle necks in work flows and logjams in the production process. But in reality, problem solving is everyone’s job! Think about it. The only reason you are hired is to resolve an existing problem.

But where did this myth originate in modern history?  At the time of the industrial revolution, great minds like Fayol, Sloan and James Watt thought to break down work into basic tasks so that they could run factories and firms with “unskilled” labour. These unskilled labourers were coming out of the agrarian age where everyone managed his own farm.

The founding fathers of modern industry argued that they could get quality products from their factories so long as they did not complicate the tasks they gave to these unskilled labourers and did not burden them with making any decisions. So, they organized production lines where employees did a single repetitive, routine task every day all the day for a career such as putting nails in a box. However, problems arose when the production process was interrupted by a fault such as when the nails ran out or when a person began putting nails under the box. To solve such problems, managers toured the lines to inspect and solve production problems. The manager was the only person with sufficient overview and understanding to resolve the problem.

What I find baffling today, more than 200 years later, is that highly trained, competent, skilled and experienced employees with substantial knowledge and understanding of business processes, still freeze at the finding of a problem and completely lack the will to think beyond the problem to resolve the issue. Many professionals will define the problem with pinpoint accuracy and then step back to watch the manager squirm as they ask the question, “what shall we do now?” This lack of resolve to move from problem to resolution leads to analysis paralysis. However, problem solving is not a technical qualification, but it is a creative, energy sapping process that everyone has the power to do. Unfortunately, managers feed this myth in order to keep their jobs, become indispensable, raise stress levels and keep bewildered employees in the dark as to what they do.